


Ways to Fall in Love

by dirtylittlegreasemonkey



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-05-14 22:34:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19282558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirtylittlegreasemonkey/pseuds/dirtylittlegreasemonkey
Summary: Written for Robron Summer of Love. A collection of AU One Shots based on different AU settings. Fics are short snapshots of their love story in an AU setting - each chapter will be a different AU. Not all will have happy endings, some will be ambiguous for you to decide what happened next.





	1. AU: Reality TV

**Author's Note:**

> AU: Reality TV

Robert’s assistant, who had one hand scrolling through her phone and the other placing down his Americano, paused in front of the desk. There was a long sheet of paper from production in front of him, listing the names, songs and sob stories of each live show contestant they were about to listen to.  Everyone here knew you didn’t get to the semi-final without a dead mother or a sister who’d been hit by an Amazon Prime truck. They were five weeks into the live shows and at this point production were heavily involved in the storylines, the groups they wanted ditched, the girl they had lined up to be this series’ bully, the boy they wanted showcased as a gran’s favourite. There were notes next to each name, suggestions of what his critique could be, in line with the VT that would be played before their performance. Shows like this didn’t become a ratings hit by accident, they were carefully planned.

Second in the running order tonight and third favourite to win was Aaron Dingle. They’d given him a makeover before the first Lives, messed up his hair, trimmed his beard, and because of that he’d been trending on Twitter for over an hour. The guys wanted to buy his jacket, the mums wanted him round for Sunday lunch and the girls wanted to shag him. He had everything. The tragic backstory, the low soulful voice, the confidence struggle in the first few rounds, the tears at boot camp. On camera, Robert had pulled him aside after a performance went badly wrong, put his hands on his shoulders and looked into his eyes and said: “You’re capable of anything.” And when Robert watched that moment back on a Saturday night a few months ago he felt the palms of his hands grow sweaty. Because for all his hollow, rehearsed judge’s talk – he hadn’t planned for that. And he’d meant it.

Robert wasn’t mentoring the Overs this year, he had the groups and if the odds were anything to go by, he was doomed to be lumbered with the twee band which was a line-up of half boys, half girls and one of them really couldn’t sing. But he knew the record label wanted Aaron – who was he kidding, everyone wanted Aaron. He had the second in command at the label clearing the decks to give Aaron the best song writers in the business. Even Robert’s straight-as-a-die estranged brother Andy said he watched all of Aaron’s performances on YouTube and normally he pretended he didn’t even watch the show, simply because Robert’s name was attached to it.

Robert’s assistant put her phone down in front of him, its sleek case reflecting the harsh studio lights.

“It’s all over Twitter,” Tracy said. “I take it you’ve seen it.”

Robert removed the lid of his coffee to blow on it. “No. I usually rely on you to give me the highlights.”

Tracy leant over him, hunting down a particular hashtag and a flow of tweets. “They’re talking about you and Aaron.”

“You what?” Robert blew on the surface of his drink again. Steady. Direct.

Abandoning the phone and standing upright, hands on hips, she scrutinised him. Her mouth fell open in a little o shape. “You are, aren’t you?”

*

It was two hours until show-time. He’d normally be in his dressing room with a whiskey, on the phone to one of the press officers who wanted some generic quotes they could use as ‘inside gossip’ for the magazines and online articles. Instead he’d hunted down the keys to an old utility cupboard, one they used to store sound equipment in and was now just a bunch of empty metal shelves. His mouth was hooked on the hot curve of Aaron’s throat. He could feel him trembling, fighting a gasp. He had a throat worth millions, without any tinkering, golden vocal chords and a tongue that had already made the hairs on the back of Robert’s neck stand up tonight, without a single note sung.

Robert unfastened Aaron’s jeans and turned him around, steering them towards an old mixing desk. He’d already felt Aaron’s cock twitching under his knuckles and now one grope of his arse and he was cursing, uncomfortably hard. Robert could relate. He was this close to forgetting the idea of fucking him properly and settling for a fast and loose rub against each other. That’s how it had been the first time, the euphoria of the first live show, Aaron turning up at the door of his dressing room after weeks of low-lidded glances when the cameras weren’t rolling. They hadn’t talked much. Robert learnt from all the press junkets that Aaron wasn’t much of a talker. There was something surly about him, unlikeable even, but his voice and the tears had won over the public. And for Robert? It _was_ the surliness, the smirks, the way his voice changed the whole temperature of the room.

Robert had spent half his career surrounded by rumour and speculation, but most of it was batted away with NDAs and leaked stories. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t worked his way through a few female popstars, the odd model, it’s just that there had been a few camera men, the odd roadie that had given him a blowjob backstage.

But a contestant? Never. This was a first. He was never stupid enough to let his heart thump over a contestant, especially a bloke. But then Aaron appeared at his dressing room door. Their fingers had touched during a party and Robert had got low into his ear with compliments, but that moment after the opening live show was the first time they’d been alone. Without cameras, without the other judges, without the ten million viewers watching. Aaron had knocked at the door and then stood there, stunned and speechless, slightly breathless, slightly damp from the intensity of the stage lights. So Robert offered him a drink, which he sipped shakily and then made an excuse to leave, but not before Robert pinned him to the door and put his mouth on his.

The kiss could never have been just a kiss. He could lose everything and still it was worth it.

And now they were six weeks deep in this thing. He’d even managed to smuggle Aaron into his home, his bed. Aaron had sat on the edge of it, shy under the walls of platinum records, awards that detailed Robert’s every last success as the youngest and richest record producer. Once, accolades that had meant so much, but with Aaron there he had felt embarrassed. It looked shallow, showing off something that barely mattered. Instead, under the covers, nose to nose, he had wanted to forget the world and say: just stay.

It was the urgency of this pre-live show fuck that made it fast and slick and Robert had Aaron coming within minutes, pressed together over the old decks. There was a dim part of his head that sparked up with two alternating thoughts: you need to end this versus it’ll all be over soon. His thoughts always grew dark in the aftermath. He had visions of Aaron’s fame exploding, leaving Robert trailing behind like a teenage girl with just a poster on her bedroom wall. And like the girls did, tweeting him and leaving him comments on his Instagram, Robert thought he was falling in love with him.

“I wanted to see you before the show,” Robert said after they’d pulled their clothes back into place, skin still electric.

“I thought you wanted to keep things discreet.”

“I don’t want to jeopardise your chances.”

“I’m not even favourite to win.”

“You’re everyone’s favourite.”

Robert faltered after saying it and seeing the surprise on Aaron’s face. He tried to make it flirtatious instead of so sincere, running his hands down the flank of his body. “Come on, you know how good you are.”

Robert couldn’t help himself. He’d snuck into rehearsals, he’d spent late nights at home alone with a bottle of wine and recordings of the show just to rewatch Aaron’s performances. He sat there hurling very personal abuse to the washed-up popstar masquerading as a judge who dared to call Aaron’s song choice dated. Robert got goosebumps and very little did that for him these days. Not even sales figures.

“You know the whole internet is talking about us,” Robert said. Somehow he found it a turn-on rather than a worry. The truth wouldn’t get out, not even on the gossip sites. He paid Tracy too much to let that happen.

Robert saw Aaron fluster, and wound his mouth into the crook of Aaron’s neck for a kiss. He wanted to mouth the sordid speculation into Aaron’s ear and get him hot and bothered again but they were on the clock.

“Saying what?”

“That we’re at it. Or at least, they wish we were.”

Aaron withdrew, head cocked to the side. “Are you serious? You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

“They’ll just think it’s a conspiracy theory. We’ve been careful.”

“You’re not worried, about your reputation?”

Robert put his hands on Aaron’s hips, pushed his forehead against Aaron’s. “I’m not worried about a thing.”

*

Aaron topped the public vote, his odds shifting. Robert’s gruesome group went through too and he plastered on a smile, throwing looks over their shoulder in Aaron’s direction while he celebrated with his own mentor.

Robert wanted to speak to him after the show, wanted to congratulate him, kiss praise into his skin. But he was dragged off to do the spin-off show and then a runner tapped Robert on the shoulder to come and meet some fans who’d won a competition. And Robert ached. He could see Aaron falling away from him, swept into a bubble, whirlwinded by the chaos of fame and fortune.

The competition winners wanted selfies and signed t-shirts and wanted to know which members of TwoFourSix were single. They asked who he thought would win and Aaron’s name slipped from his lips and blood pounded in his gut.

The girls stayed quiet for a minute, looking at him and then each other.

“But I think he’s overrated, don’t you?” Robert said quickly, stumbling over his own weakness. “A bit dated.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Aaron laughing with the spin-off show presenter and Robert’s heart dropped. He excused himself from the competition winners and ducked away from Aaron’s gaze when he passed.

He had two choices and he knew the one he wanted, the one that kept him awake at night. The one that could never be the future. He could never tell him that he had fallen in love with him, even if half the internet had already guessed.


	2. AU: Holiday Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AU: Holiday Romance

Adam brought two pints to the table, but his head was up and around like a meerkat. “Mate,” he said, leaning into Aaron. “He’s definitely into you.”

Aaron rolled his eyes, taking a swig of beer and relaxed back into his chair. The metal of it was cool on his sunburnt arms. He’d overdone it today but then he was sun-starved after escaping a drizzly June in Yorkshire, and this was only day three of the holiday, by tomorrow he’d be fine. Less lobstery.

He couldn’t resist having a look to see if Adam was right. The blond guy was there again, looking over, looking away. Looking over. Tanned, slim. Fit. Aaron was starved in other departments too, but it wasn’t just his hunger for a shag talking, the bloke was a ten. He didn’t look the sort to be hanging around Malaga bars though. Aaron had spotted him in the hotel bar too wearing shirts unbuttoned at the neck, but he wasn’t short of company – of the female variety – so Aaron had left it. He’d have to make do with Adam’s attempts to hook him up with someone with a game of “Gay or European” around the side of the pool. Speedos – you could never tell.

“He keeps looking right at you.”

“Yeah because we look like a pair of clowns. Sunburnt and footie t-shirts. He’s looking down on us.”

“Nah, he’s got those eyes.”

“Eyes? Fancy him yourself, do ya?”

Adam poked him in the ribs and the pair of them looked up to see the blond guy getting up from his table and heading to the bar. Aaron couldn’t help the flush of heat as the guy eyed him then turned his head away, smiling. It was as if he knew all along they were talking about him. Aaron swallowed, tight and uncomfortable. He didn’t know if it was the heat or the beer, but he was going to have to jerk off in the shower tonight imagining the blond guy behind him, kissing his neck.

The next day, they spotted the same guy in their hotel bar, this time with a girl falling over herself to get near him. It wasn’t a girl Aaron had seen him with before (he’d remember seeing as he stared at her for ages, seething with jealousy) and that made it even worse. He was going to have to get laid tonight even if it was with some greasy club goer he didn’t fancy.

Adam clapped him on the shoulders when he clocked blondie. “Ah bad luck mate. Looks like you’re not his type after all. Still, we can find some talent tonight, eh?”

And Aaron wanted to brush it off and pretend he wasn’t bothered, he really did. But the problem was, the blond stranger _had_ been staring. He’d smiled at Aaron, smirked at him over a drink. Aaron had got a sweat on under the guy’s gaze. Then he’d seen him earlier by the pool, his shorts slipping below his hip bones and Aaron had to shut his eyes and just imagine licking the chlorine from his stomach.

“Shit. Forgot my phone,” Adam said. “I’ll just grab it and go for a piss and then we’ll head, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Aaron said, decidedly less enthusiastic now, watching the girl sitting with the blond guy and leaning into whisper something to him.

Aaron made himself comfortable sitting in a cubed chair and checking his phone idly, foot twitching. He could still see the guy in his sight-line but he tried to blank him out, tried not to grit his teeth at the girl’s inane laughter. _Oh Robert!_ So now Aaron knew the guy’s name. Robert.

A minute later the chair opposite Aaron was occupied. He didn’t look up and spent half a second assuming it was Adam, until there was a different scent, a shift in the air.

“Brother, minder or boyfriend?”

Aaron jumped, flicking his eyes up and losing grip on his phone. It slipped onto the floor and the blond guy – Robert – had to lean forward and pick it up for him. He made a deliberate show of it, holding onto it, swiping over the screen. Their hands met and Aaron’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel _something_.

“You what?”

“The guy you’re with.”

Aaron could feel his heart beating in his chest, blurring his pretence of indifference.

“What’s it to you?”

“Are you always this hostile?”

“Are you always this nosey?”

Robert smirked again, leaning forward in his seat and his eyes giving a slow drag across Aaron’s body.

“And she’s your sister, is she?”

He shrugged. “No crime in flirting is there.”

“There is if she’s your sister.”

“I’m not used to seeing you without your shadow,” Robert said. “So I thought I’d strike while the iron’s hot.”

“What do you want?”

There was a beat, a hot prickle across the back of Aaron’s neck. Robert didn’t move. “You,” he said.

It was this exact moment that Adam decided to make a reappearance. He noticed Robert too late and the wide eyed reaction of Aaron, so he opened his big mouth and ruined the moment.

“Oh I…errr….”

But Robert had already stood, stuck out his hand for Aaron to shake and left them to it without another word.

“Shit, man,” Adam said. “I really fucked things up there, didn’t I? What did he want?”

“Nothing,” Aaron said every image of being spread out on a bed under a tanned and sweaty Robert vanishing. “Just a wind up merchant.”

It was only later, three drinks into their club crawl, that Aaron saw something strange on his phone. Three numbers keyed into the phone pad. 2-1-4. He realised with a flush that this wasn’t just a random string of digits but a hotel room number.   

He spent the rest of the night distracted, hopeless like some lovesick teenager. When Adam got roped into a hen party’s games, Aaron excused himself outside and dialled the hotel’s number, blowing out his nerves with a shot in hand and big breaths.

“Hola. Hi, it’s er…do you think…could you put me through to a room phone, please? Room 214. 2-1-4. The name? Um…he…”

The receptionist interrupted. “Oh don’t worry sir, Mr Sugden said he was expecting a call. I will put you through now.”

Cheeky bastard, Aaron thought, almost losing his nerve during the dial tone. What was he even supposed to say?

Robert picked up. “Hello?”

Aaron was deep breathing down the line.

“I don’t know whether to be scared or turned on.”

“Shut up,” Aaron said.

“Hi.”

“You’re arrogant, aren’t you? To think I’d call.”

“Wasn’t wrong though, was I?”

“You didn’t ask me,” Aaron said.

“What?”

“You didn’t ask me what _I_ wanted.”

“Oh? What do you want?”

Aaron ran his gaze down the strip. The bars, the clubs, the boozed up guys and girls, the young and fit.

“You already know,” he said. He was sure he could feel Robert smiling down the phone, slightly breathless. He hesitated a second. “You are on your own, aren’t you?”

Robert laughed. “Yes,” and then his voice turned serious. “It was only ever to make you jealous. So, are you coming here?”

He pushed back into the club, to tell Adam he was heading back to the hotel, making an excuse about feeling too great. Adam, being the mate that he was offered to sack off all his female attention but he was having far too much fun to be truly committed to the idea of leaving. In the end, Aaron wished him a good night and made his way out into the night air, feeling a cool breeze and a trill of excitement.

When he knocked on the door of 214, Robert answered, shirtless and in soft and loose pyjama bottoms. It was all very obvious, but it worked a treat on Aaron anyway, the room slightly tilting.

“You made it,” Robert said, leaning up against the edge of the door and taking the time to let his eyes roam over Aaron’s body.

“I’m not looking for anything serious,” Aaron heard himself say. “I’m not after a bloke. Just so you know.” Where had that come from? Playing hard to get? His heart was racing.

“Are you saying I’m not marriage material?” Robert said through a half grin. He had this way of lowering his eyelids, speaking slowly and throatily. Robert straightened up. “I’m gone tomorrow anyway.”

“Oh,” Aaron said. “Right.”

He was doing a terrible job at pretending not to care.

Robert grinned wider, gripping Aaron by the front of his shirt and pulling him into the room, kicking the door shut behind them. Robert had a whole suite, a balcony.

“I’m not really,” Robert said. “I just wanted to see your reaction.”

Robert leant in close, breathing him in. Aaron’s eyes closed and swayed into Robert’s grip.

“I wanted you to be disappointed,” Robert said, mouth hovering close to Aaron’s.

“I was.”

Aaron closed the gap between them, lips meeting Robert’s. He didn’t plan for anything longer than a night, for the two of them in bed to mean anything more than a quick holiday fumble, but the kiss felt like more. Robert’s hands pulling at his waist, pulling him onto the balls of his feet, breathlessly needy and charged. This was an ignition, a kiss that felt like falling into forever. He let himself dream and fall onto a bed of crisp white sheets.


	3. AU: Friends to Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Robert and Aaron have been friends for years, watching as they both fail at relationships. But as things come to a head at Vic and Adam's wedding, will things change between them?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: mentions of biphobia

There was a soft thunk on the table, next to his head. Robert opened an eye to see a sweating bottle of the good stuff.

“Now,” Aaron said, “don’t say I never do anything for ya.”

Robert straightened up in his seat, uncrumpled his shirt and waistcoat and put his hands around the next of the bottle, admiring the golden lettering on the label, a year that reminded him of some bad decisions but one that would taste good.

“Where’d you get this?” Robert asked, reaching across the table for two glasses. One still had lipstick on but he rubbed it off with his thumb. Aaron put his arm out to stop him and in doing so knocked over the centrepiece, the name places, the little favours which were hard minty sweets.

“We’ll neck it from the bottle,” Aaron said, looking quickly around the room. The dance floor was full. Robert realised, glancing too, that they were two of the only people hunched over one of the white tables still. Everyone else had either gone home or were so pissed they were shaking themselves to the Black Eyed Peas under the blue and yellow lights.

Aaron steered him outside into the gardens of the hotel and they sat on a bench, sheltered by an ivy-thick wall. Aaron sat on the arm, feet on the seat of the bench, while Robert slumped across the whole thing, arms and legs splayed insolently. Because he could. He struck out his arm for the bottle, only to find Aaron had his lips around the thing taking a swig all too greedily for someone who professed to hating the stuff.

Aaron winced and handed it over. “Out with it then, what’s up with you?”

Robert said nothing and rolled his eyes. It was his little sister’s wedding day he was allowed to centre the attention back to himself in a maudlin and selfish way – wasn’t he? And it wasn’t because weddings brought it out of him, or that his plus one had dumped him yesterday, or that Vic had chosen to marry an absolute bell end who happened also to be a close friend of Aaron’s.

“It’s not about Adam, is it?” Aaron said.

Robert groaned. “You always have to bring him up.”

“What d’you mean? It is his wedding day too, you know.”

“Like I can forget,” Robert said. “You and everyone else talk about him like he’s…I don’t know. Jesus.”

“Here-” Aaron said, snatching the bottle away from Robert, who then swayed slightly in its absence, “-the overprotective brother thing is wearing thin now. Time to get over it. She’s married.”

Robert gave a sarcastic, yelping celebratory sound and then heaved himself backwards on the bench.

“Come on,” Aaron said, using a softer voice. It made the hairs on Robert’s neck stand up. “Is it something else?”

“Like what?”

Robert couldn’t help but notice in this light how Aaron’s eyes looked darker, wider. He’d lost his tie, unbuttoned the first two fastenings on his shirt and his Best Man corsage had seen better days. If anyone needed a pitying pat on the back, it was him, Robert thought meanly.

“You got dumped yesterday. You’re almost thirty and you’re already one divorce down.”

“Thanks for the character assassination,” Robert said. “And for your information, I dumped her.”

Aaron raised his eyebrows and Robert saw him bounce his leg slightly, foot moving. Nervous tick. He did it all the time.

“Didn’t think much of her anyway,” Aaron said, turning his head away as he took a hefty chug of the champagne.

“Are we sharing that or what?”

Aaron’s lips were glistening as he handed it back over and Robert had a startling flash of déjà vu, a memory he’d tried so hard to pretend was something he’d forgotten, rather than one he couldn’t forget.

“What was wrong with her? She liked you. I thought you liked her.”

Granted, he’d only dated Clare for five weeks but in that time she’d already met Aaron and he’d smoothly introduced himself as the friend who’d never managed to escape Robert’s clutches. She’d laughed at that. Too much maybe, in hindsight. But it had just been a casual pub meet, a few drinks. It was that stage in the relationship where the socialising bit got in the way of the sex bit, and often the sex bit was the only bit he felt capable of.

“You put me off her.”

“Why?”

“What she said about you.”

It took a moment. The bottle hung in the air as the memory dawned on Robert. “Oh because she reacted badly to the bi thing.”

“It’s not why she dumped you, is it?”

“No. She got over her hang ups.” Robert paused. “And I dumped _her_ , remember?”

It all came flooding back. Aaron was fuming, so angry Robert wished he hadn’t raised it, wished he’d said it with humour or downplayed her gut reaction. Clare had pulled a face, said she didn’t think being bisexual was a real thing. And his answer, rather than to shout or cry, was to shag her. Prove his worth. Like some broken fucking record who hated himself.

And Aaron of course knew all this and thundered on Robert’s behalf, and then had apparently pretended to like Clare again, for Robert’s benefit. She wasn’t the only one of his ex girlfriends who had found out and made some equally disparaging comment, or grimaced. He just hadn’t mentioned those ones to Aaron.

His bisexuality was an open secret, open because people knew he occasionally had sex with men, and secret because he didn’t tell anyone new by choice. Aaron knew, obviously. Aaron had been a big reason why one day he’d drank a straight whiskey and told Victoria that he was also into men. Aaron had been the sole reason why he’d attempted an actual date with a bloke. When it had gone badly, and he had freaked, he’d called Aaron in the dead of night, the two of them sharing the same sleep-deprived breaths in the dark. Then Robert had told him about everything, his dad, his inability to let go enough to form emotional relationships with men. And Aaron had let him talk and talk and then said softly, “Do you want me to come over? To talk properly?”. But it was late and he was miles away. And he very definitely had a boyfriend that he rarely talked about and Robert knew, even though he wanted to, that saying yes would be a terrible idea.

“Anyway,” Robert said, turning on the bench, feet up also, so they were facing. “I don’t see you lightyears ahead of me either. Dateless, for one.”

“I’m young. I’ve still got time,” Aaron said. He used his foot to kick at Robert’s. “You hated him anyway. You got drunk and made a show of yourself.”

Robert groaned, pinching the skin of his cheeks and pulling it down. “He was so boring. Tell me, why are all your boyfriends completely devoid of any personality? And I didn’t make a show of myself, I just thought it might liven him up a bit.”

“To embarrass him in front of everyone?”

There was a tinge of bitterness in Aaron’s voice. And Robert looked him over.

“Were you upset with me?”

“That night? Yeah.”

“And now?”

Aaron shrugged. He held the bottle between his knees and his fingers began peeling at the label.

“Did you nick that?” Robert asked, grinning.

“No one else was drinking it,” Aaron said. He tore into the slip at the neck of the bottle. His mouth turned small and solemn and Robert knew he was thinking back to that stupid night where Robert had invented a game to make a fool out of Aaron’s boyfriend Alex.

It was selfish and possessive of him to play ‘Who knows Aaron the best?’ but Robert was feeling vicious. Aaron was always busy with Alex those days and things looked like they were getting increasingly serious. He was wrong for Aaron, anyone could see that. It shouldn’t have taken a game to prove it. If anything, Robert did them both a favour.

“It’s like…” Aaron began, looking down at their shined formal shoes.

“What?”

“You set out to break us up.”

“You and Doctor Dull?”

“Not just him.”

Robert felt the air pulse between them. He was getting hot. It was a balmy night and he was in a three-piece suit, his skin buzzed and pink from too much drink, but not he was hotter.

“You’re being ridiculous now,” Robert said. He swung round so he was sitting properly on the bench, only this time rigid, knees squashed together.

“Ed,” Aaron said.

“Who?”

“Don’t play the idiot.”

“Oh so that was my fault too? You and Mr Brawn no Brains. Don’t blame me for highlighting the obvious.”

Aaron lifted off the arm and plonked himself on the other end of the bench so that there were side by side. It was dark but Robert could still see Aaron was glowering.

“Is it some sort of revenge? Payback because your marriage failed. You want me to be on my own just because you are?”

“Well you don’t see me blaming you for my divorce, do you?”

“You didn’t even love her.”

Robert scoffed and then a stiff silence wedged between them. Outside they could still hear the music pumping. It was something slow and soppy now, distorted like they were underwater. Aaron was right, like he always had been. They’d been friends far too long for Aaron not to know him like they were part of the same person, blood pumping through the same organs and veins.

Maybe he had loved Chrissie once. The sort of thing he imagined loved to be anyway. The catalogue, glossy magazine version, one they could boast about to friends. But something happened when he was away from her and that bubble. Like a weight was lifted. And then a night like this one, too much to drink, dishevelled and warm, thrown into the deep recesses of thought and regret, he sat outside with Aaron. It was Robert’s Stag Do, a week before he was due to marry Chrissie in a big country manor. Everyone else had gone home but Aaron had stayed. His smile hadn’t reached his eyes all night. Two years ago now and Robert could still remember how warm Aaron’s skin had felt when their forearms had touched.

“Good night?” Aaron had asked.

“It would be better if you didn’t look so miserable,” Robert said, so Aaron forced a smile.

“I…” he began, before it got swallowed in his throat.

Robert had found himself with a hand on Aaron’s knee, imploring him to finish his sentence. They suddenly became the most important words of all time.

“It’s stupid.”

“Nothing you say is ever stupid.”

Aaron smiled, head ducked down. “I’m worried it’ll change things.”

It dawned on Robert what he meant. Chrissie. The wedding. Him becoming married. A husband. “Oh,” he said. His hand was still on his knee. “I don’t want it to.”

“But it will. Won’t it?”

It had felt as if this coded talk had the weight of a whole galaxy. Robert saw the night sky spin over his head.

“I don’t think I’ll ever love her as much as I love you.” Robert’s blood rushed from his head, then back again, flaming in his cheeks. He told himself it wasn’t the same kind of love so it didn’t matter. Did it?

A stitch of a frown appeared on Aaron’s forehead and Robert looked briefly down to Aaron’s t-shirt, a Stag T-shirt in Robert’s honour. A terrible picture of his face. It was disconcerting to look at.

“Then why are you marrying her?” Aaron asked. It was said in such a fragile way, Robert thought Aaron’s voice might break.

Instead he leant in and kissed him, tasting fear and cheap shots on his tongue. He put his hand on Aaron’s chest and his heartbeat scolded. The kiss was soft and uncertain, met with slow, yearning breaths. They’d never done that before. Not during the late nights when Robert struggled to talk about who he was and how he felt, not when Aaron tried picking apart why he couldn’t click with his latest boyfriend. All this time they’d just missed each other by a hair fracture. It was so close, so right and yet had the potential to be so wrong and painful, they never dared try it. Except then, on Robert’s Stag Do. A week before his wedding.

Then a taxi’s horn blared and they sprung apart and Aaron had rushed home. They didn’t mention it again. Didn’t dare.

And now here they were at Victoria and Adam’s wedding, pressing down hard on the memory they wanted to forget. Neither of them had talked for a minute or two. Aaron nudged him with the bottle of champagne.

“Weddings make me feel like the loneliest man in the world,” Robert said, shuddering out what he’d been feeling all day. “I look at them and I think – ‘When will that be my turn? When will I get to look into someone else’s eyes and feel like my world would end without them?’. And then I think, maybe never.”

“You’ve had too much to drink,” Aaron said, trying to laugh it off.

“No,” Robert said, turning, snatching up Aaron’s wrist, trying to get his attention. He rested his hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “Have you ever felt like that?”

Aaron looked up, met his eyes and looked away again. Laughed. “With Alex? Ed?”

“With anyone?”

The humour in Aaron’s mouth sunk away and he tilted up his chin, fidgeted with the skin around his fingernails and finally looked right at Robert.

“Yeah.”

Robert opened his mouth to speak, but Aaron wasn’t finished.

“But then he went and married someone else.”

“He was an idiot.” He swallowed. His racing heart was making him feel sick.

“He was scared. I get it.”

“But?”

Aaron shook his head. “No ‘buts’. You’re my best friend. It could get messy.”

“That sounds like a ‘but’.” He paused. “I thought Adam was your best friend?”

He laughed. “Maybe,” he said. “Only because you’re more than that. Because I love you.”

Robert let out a long tense breath.

“I love you too. I think I always have.”

Aaron was the reason Robert got permission to be himself. Aaron was the reason Robert realised he was definitely bisexual and not just curious. Aaron was the reason he was able to move past his dad’s words and find a new sense of worth.

Robert slid his hand into the inside of Aaron’s waistcoat, where it was electric-warm and kissed him on the mouth, as firm and as sure as it always should have been. And Aaron kissed him back, fingers curled into the back of Robert’s hair, with enough force and passion for Robert to know this wasn’t just a one-time, sentimental drunken kiss at a wedding, but the first of many, a kiss of a love that would go on and on until everyone was sick of hearing the story.

 

 

 

 


	4. AU: Rockstar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time Aaron knew for definite that he was gay, was when he saw Robert Sugden’s face on the front of a CD cover. 
> 
> The story of Aaron Dingle falling in love with damaged rockstar Robert Sugden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always these stories are snapshots of an AU so it doesn't have an "ending" or the whole story - that's up to you!

The first time Aaron knew for definite that he was gay, was when he saw Robert Sugden’s face on the front of a CD cover. It was black and white, his eyes looking far off into the distance. A serious and solemn pose, so close up Aaron could have sworn he could feel the texture of Robert’s skin through the photograph. It was monochrome of course, but Aaron knew, by the flush of freckles that he was golden. On the back, by the track-listing was a full body shot of Robert, leant up against a wall, his fist pulling the edge of his white t-shirt away from his stomach. There was the briefest, slimmest hint of bare skin. There was an outline of his chest.

Paddy gave Aaron the CD for his 18th birthday. And later that night, when Aaron was on his own, the CD playing low in his ears as if Robert’s mouth was pressed against the lobe, Aaron opened the fly of his jeans with one hand, CD case in the other and imagined Robert in the room with him. Robert had a song called _Your Lover_ and Aaron came, clumsily, desperately, breaths rasping, when Robert sang about finding somewhere secret they could go.

Aaron followed him on every social media going, Facebook, YouTube, even Twitter which wasn’t very popular in those days. It was only years later he got Instagram just to scroll through Robert’s stories late at night. But in those early days he felt himself eaten by every form of jealousy when Robert’s videos of backstage included tipsy girls and male dances with incredible shoulders. He went from selling out pub performances to a full house at venues all the big names started out in.

Aaron and Adam got some cheap, back of the venue, tickets for one of his gigs and Aaron had to spend the whole night pretending he wasn’t that arsed. Pretending he didn’t feel on fire. His ears were ringing after, painful and blinding, and yet it felt like he’d carried a piece of the gig home with him. He was flat out in bed, eyes closed and reliving it. He’d been one breath away from persuading Adam to hang around the venue so he could try and meet Robert Sugden, he could excuse it, telling him it would be a good pub anecdote, couldn’t he? But in the end he bottled it, his stomach fizzing. He listened to girls all around him talking about how much they fancied Robert, how good he must be in bed. So when he got home, head still banging, he put his ear phones in and listened to those acoustic tracks Robert had released on his YouTube channel and tried to remember what it felt like to be listening, live, as if his whole body had finally woken up.

When Aaron was twenty one, Robert came out as bisexual. He’d given an exclusive to a gay mag, taken most of his clothes off and done an arty photoshoot that made Aaron feel like he’d been set alight. He thought he was over that teenage phase of crushing on a popstar. He’d had boyfriends since, steady, pub-going, normal boyfriends. But there was Robert Sugden, jeans undone, legs spread, front cover. The newspapers twisted things in the months that followed, digging dirt on him, from ex-girlfriends to one night stands with muscled roadies and a bar manager with a grudge. They tried to make Robert sound sleazy, greedy – all the clichés. When Robert spoke frankly about sex, it was anything but sordid. Aaron wanted some small part of his confidence, and most acutely he wanted Robert’s spread thighs pressed around him.

After that exclusive interview though, Robert went silent. Total blackout. No music, no social media posts. Aaron kept refreshing. Put on Robert’s previous CDs and let that yearning feeling at the centre of his chest return. Was it possible to miss someone you’d never even met? Now he knew that some of Robert’s songs were written about men, were written about the raw tension of a secret, he couldn’t listen to anyone else’s music.

Then Aaron fell in love. Moved miles away from home. Got a better job in a bigger garage. His boyfriend even made him leave his CDs behind because there wasn’t any room in the flat. There was a brief, almost imperceptible drop in his stomach and then it passed. Twelve months on, he saw a small headline in a newspaper with a rumour that “missing” popstar Robert Sugden had checked into rehab. Aaron found himself on Spotify and listened to Robert’s old song about coping with invisible pain and then laid next to his boyfriend, in their flat and let himself acknowledge the distance that had been building between them.

One of his colleagues from the garage offered to take him out on the pull when Aaron called it quits on his relationship. They ended up at a pub, and the night became less about pulling and more about drinking. They had an open mic night and Aaron let himself be lulled out of his slump, listening to the singers croon about bigger heartbreak than his. Afterwards him and his mate from the garage got talking to one of the singer song writers, Dawn she said her name was, and did they want to go to a private gig she knew about round the corner. “Believe me,” she said, “the guy singing tonight is amazing.”

So they squeezed into this basement bar, elbow to elbow, beer breath. A guy stepped on stage, but the lights were dimmed and Aaron was stuck right at the back so all he could do was stare into his drink when the guitar started. The first chords made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. The crowd around him swirled. There was whooping and hollering and the room felt blacker than ever. Aaron felt sick.

“This song,” came the voice Aaron knew too well, only huskier, more tired. Aaron blushed furiously in the dark. “This song is about a love that hasn’t been found yet.”

Aaron’s hands were sweaty and he’d lost the feeling in his face. He thought about getting out of there, or at least running to the bogs to throw up. He looked around for his mate to see him chatting up Dawn, and as if he’d dreamt it, the pulse of bodies seemed to part. He could see straight to the front of the stage now. He could see Robert clinging to the microphone. He pushed forward, not saying sorry or excuse me, just forcing his way closer and closer to the front of the stage.

There was a note near the end of the song, a breathy pause and words that Aaron could feel burning up his skin. Robert eased his mouth from the microphone and all this time he’d been looking away, unfocused and above the heads of the audience. In this pause, his eyes scanned low and he looked straight into Aaron’s.

After Robert’s set, six brand new songs and not even a flicker of his famous melodies, he left the stage, disappearing out the back through a curtain. Aaron was a wreck. He stood beside Deano and Dawn not having a word to say, not even there, just hovering, brain totally detached. He wanted to slip away, to blag his way backstage, he had all the adrenaline of a man on the run, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t risk being thrown out and having to explain himself. And worse – what if he did come face to face with the man he held responsible for his sexual awakening, what then? The whole thing was stupid anyway, what if he was an arsehole? What if Aaron’s teenage fantasies dissolved in a single second? Wouldn’t it be better to never know?

“Good, wasn’t he?” Dawn said to Aaron when Deano excused himself to the bogs.

Aaron gave her a tight smile and a nod. His mouth moved without his say so. “Do you know him?”

“Friend of a friend,” she said.

“What’s he like?” Skin electric. Aaron took a mouthful of beer and forced the swallow. It felt like rocks.

She blinked, almost as if she’d never been asked that before, though obviously it would be the first thing anyone would want to know.

“Sorry,” she said, hesitating. “It’s just people are always sniffing round for a story after all the rehab thing, the stuff with his dad…”

Aaron frowned. “His dad?”

“You didn’t read it?” Dawn said, turning back to put her empty beer bottle down. Aaron wracked his brains – he would have remembered. Unless, he realised, it was when his feet were on the ground, when he was in love and thoughts of Robert were pale and distant.

Dawn explained. “His dad died. Apparently he’d been really ill years back and moved to Spain to recover, and he’d been getting better again, only this time he didn’t get better. Robert took it hard. Him and his dad…well they weren’t close, but Robert spent his whole life trying to impress him. Then – and I don’t know how it happened, a bitter ex or something – sent all these private letters from Robert’s dad to the press. They published them. They were personal. Painful. Robert’s dad struggled to cope with his coming out and there it was dragged up by the tabloids for everyone to read.”

“Fuck.”

“I know, right? Hence the drinking, hence the rehab.”

“Is he…now?”

“Better? Getting there I think.”

“It must be lonely,” Aaron said. Dawn widened her eyes slightly, glazed, and Aaron realised she hadn’t heard him.

When Deano came back, he signalled to Aaron he wanted some alone time with Dawn, so Aaron rolled his eyes and did what was asked, heading to the toilets himself, even though he didn’t need them. He had a brief, heat-rushing fantasy that he might collide head first into Robert in the gents, but as he washed his hands in the sink after, staring into the mirror, he told himself to get a grip.

_Can you feel the promise in the air, that lingering anticipation?_

He had one of Robert’s new songs pressing on his skull. What he wouldn’t give to have it sung to him and him alone. What he wouldn’t give to have the words sung to him, as if they were written with him in mind. He knew what he wanted wasn’t just a song, wasn’t just a crush. He wanted love, love like Robert sang about – the one he hadn’t found yet.

The fire alarm in the bar was set off by someone being shoved into the emergency glass and everyone trooped outside. Aaron’s head flicked back and forth, looking for someone who didn’t want to be found. But as everyone piled rowdily out onto the pavement, there was no sign of him.

*

It was even more stupid to go back to the same bar the next night, hanging around on his own like he could attach himself to the memory of Robert and make him appear out of thin air. He could feel him in the room, like a scent clinging to the stage, the walls.

He left after one beer, kicking himself for being a complete twat. And then, passing an alleyway by the bar he saw a figure slumped against the wall, hazily silhouetted by street lamps. Aaron’s heart hammered. He could barely pick up his feet, like time had slowed down completely. Now the figure looked up and he was forced to stop and choke out some words.

“Are you alright?”

In the dim, Robert nodded.

“You sure?” Aaron couldn’t stop himself. Now he had one foot in the alleyway.

“Not really.”

Now he was close enough to see Robert’s mouth slightly wet from drink. It made him tense, knowing how long Robert had been sober for. Robert looked down and then held the bottle at arm’s length like he didn’t want to be near it and Aaron took it from him with a speed that was almost automatic.

Robert rubbed a ragged hand across his face until his face was just a blur of grey and amber in the street light. He was unsteady on his feet and Aaron reached out reflexively to stop him falling, placing a hand on his shoulder. His skin felt molten. It was only afterwards, when Aaron took his hand away and they weren’t touching that Aaron was conscious that they had been. He marvelled at his hand as if the bones were brand new.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Robert said, although the words started blurring into one. He managed to right himself, pushing his back against the wall and sliding down until he was on the ground.

“You don’t need to be sorry.”

“I’m a mess.”

“I’ve seen worse.”

Robert looked up at him, questioningly.

“My mum, she runs a pub.”

Aaron let a silence play out. Robert didn’t look like the man in photoshoots or in front of an adoring crowd. He was broken, worse than that, he was defeated.

“What are you doing lurking around alleys anyway?” Robert said, a twinge of nastiness in his voice.

“I could ask the same to you.”

“I’m a drunk waste of space, what’s your excuse?”

“Dunno,” Aaron said, slumping down beside him. It made Robert look up to see he had company right next to him. “Lost.” He wanted to say more but stopped himself.

“Pub’s that way,” Robert said, pointing, even though it was obvious he knew Aaron’s comment wasn’t literal.

Robert had his eyes on the drink in Aaron’s hand. It wasn’t desperation in his eyes, but sadness.

“It won’t make it better, you know,” Aaron said.

“It might. For a minute.”

“Until the effect wears off.”

“A minute’s better than nothing.”

“Not in the long run.”

“What the hell do you know?” He was sharp. Maybe he wasn’t a nice person. Or maybe, he was just more human than he had seemed on the front of an album cover.

Didn’t Aaron know what it was like to be so full of self-loathing it screamed to get out of him? His coming out wasn’t the hardest, but it hadn’t been easy either. He didn’t want to be different, he didn’t want to stand out. Just like Robert, he’d wanted to disappear. He knew what it was like not to be able to see ahead, to think of better days. He knew what it was like to want that immediate relief. To hurt, to be numb.

Aaron swallowed, breathing out hard through his nose and then lifted up his top to show Robert some of his scars. “Same thing, different weapon.”

“Shit,” Robert said. “Sorry. Are you…I don’t know what the word is. Recovered? Better?”

“I haven’t cut in a long time, if that’s what you mean.”

“What made you stop?”

“Lot of things. I had help. I had people around me who saw the good in my life and they didn’t give up until I saw it too.”

“You’re lucky.”

“I know,” Aaron said, thinking of Paddy and everyone back home, the new friendships he’d forged in the city. “People care more than you think.”

“You reckon? There’s not anyone around who feels like that about me.”

“Not if you push them away with this,” Aaron said, sloshing the bottle.

“What are you, a psychologist?”

“I’m Aaron. Mechanic.”

“Same difference. Sort of,” Robert said, a half smile playing at his mouth.

“People, cars…yep, totally the same.”

“I wish it was that easy to get fixed.”

“You don’t need to be fixed.”

Robert looked into the heat of Aaron’s eyes and then at the bottle again. “Will you tip it down the drain before I persuade you to give it back to me?”

“I wouldn’t be persuaded.”

“You haven’t let me try.”

Robert grinned, a rush of ease slipping out between them, turning Aaron’s stomach to liquid. He picked himself off the ground and did as Robert asked, stuffing the empty bottle into a skip when it was done and returning to the spot beside Robert.

“Last night,” Aaron began, “I watched you play.”

Robert stiffened and Aaron wished he hadn’t said anything, but it was too late for that now, spilling out before he could stop himself.

“You were amazing. Those songs…”

His jaw hardened and as the silence wore on, Aaron became colder.

“Has someone sent you here?”

“What?”

“A journalist? Some shit stirrer wanting a new story on me?” He picked himself up off the ground, it was almost unsuccessful, clutching at air to try and balance.

Aaron was burning up, jumped to his feet, indignant. “What, you really think…?”

“I don’t know, you tell me.”

“I am telling you. I haven’t been sent by anyone. I’m not interested in any sort of story.”

“Then what was all this?”

“It’s called being there. I like your music. I like you. I wasn’t just gonna walk by and…”

Robert’s face softened, his posture hunched and relaxing, but it was too late for Aaron. He was breathless, rage in his fists. Even to this day Paddy would call him and try and cajole him into anger management classes, telling him maybe he had things he needed to get out of his system so he wasn’t an angry, lonely man forever. Paddy didn’t say those words, but those were the ones Aaron heard.

“Forget it,” Aaron said, already walking away, ignoring the way Robert called after him, the way the erratic thump of his heart turned all the sound in his head to blood. He wanted to stop when Robert told him to, he wanted to hear his apology, he wanted to properly listen to the way his name sounded on Robert’s tongue, but it was too late now.

*

Robert Sugden cleaned up his act, wrote a new album that reached the Top Ten of the charts. His social media transformed from displays of hedonistic indulgence to reflection, honesty. There weren’t videos of backstage parties anymore, but clips of song writing, moody snaps of the sky, poetry written underneath. He should have been viewed as a pretentious wanker, but he wasn’t anything anymore but vulnerable. He didn’t talk about any revelations or epiphany, he didn’t talk about rehab being his saviour. He hardly talked at all – no interviews, no half-naked photoshoots. He stayed out of the tabloids and they were incandescent with rage that he wasn’t giving them easy fodder anymore.

All this went unnoticed by Aaron. He had a steady relationship, his own garage. His days were grease and oil, his nights, burning the tea and binging a series on Netflix. He didn’t even have the radio on in the garage, earning him a reputation for being a nightmare to work for. His life stopped having music in it. It didn’t seem to matter anymore.

Then one night, he fell asleep in front of the TV after a long day tinkering with an old banger. He woke to music. They say sound is the first sense to wake up. He didn’t open his eyes, he laid there as if he was unable to move. The volume was low, crackling over the room, a late night music show. A wash of a guitar, a shiver of drums. Aaron let music back into his body. He opened his eyes, blinking up at the strange, blue-pink glow on the ceiling, the light from the TV. He didn’t dare look at the screen. It was as if he knew.

_If it’s you then answer_

_If it’s me then I’m sorry_

_I traced where we were, where we sat_

_You could have reached out and touched me, held me_

_Take me back there, streetlight, alleyway_

_Let me hold you, thank you_

Aaron turned his head and looked at the TV, throat seizing. Robert held the microphone close, eyes heavy lidded. Underneath, on the screen was a tickertape, his name and the title of the song.

_Song for A_

After that, Aaron was thrown back into being 18, stalking, looking for signs in everything Robert posted. There was speculation online about who this “A” was he’d written a song for. Someone on Twitter said they’d seen rumours the song was about a lost love, someone else said it was for someone who’d died, another fan said A was for Angel. Aaron knew better.

Aaron hovered over the keypad on his phone, typing out a DM and then deleting it just as fast. They hadn’t seen each other in two years and even then, they hardly knew each other. The song might not even be about him. And in the next room, Aaron’s boyfriend was sleeping. He flicked the Instagram app away, turned off the TV after one last look at Robert’s face, his creased brow, his open mouth, and went to bed.

*

Deano and Dawn got married. Aaron got himself into such a state of anxiety on the morning of the wedding that he threw up and tried to make excuses not to go. Deano dropped into conversation that Robert might be coming, might even be performing. He was supposed to be touring America, but Dawn said he owed her a favour. Aaron tried to get a hold of himself. He didn’t know if he was more nervous at the thought of Robert being there, or more nervous that he might not be. In the end, Ed had to drag him there. And as the ceremony began, Ed gave him a look that meant “maybe us next” and all Aaron could do was smile weakly and keep looking towards the doors for a late arrival.

He didn’t come. But Aaron didn’t stop hoping, looking. Even after the first dance he held onto the glimmer of hope like it was a shard of glass. Dawn sat down at his table, removing her wedding shoes and desperate to swap her booze for water. Ed went to the bar. Aaron congratulated her again, gave her all the platitudes you’re supposed to give at weddings.

“You next,” she said, teasingly.

“Thanks,” he said, rolling his eyes. “You’re the fifth person that’s said that today.”

“Not keen?”

Aaron didn’t say much, let his eyes glaze over. Dawn brought him back to focus, touching his hand.

“I wish he could have made it,” she said.

Aaron frowned.

Dawn looked around to check Ed was still out of the way. “He was trying to get here but he’s stuck on tour. I don’t think it was for my benefit he was really trying to get here. Probably better he didn’t make it, what with you and…”

“Ed.”

“Right,” she said.

“Sorry. You’ve lost me.”

“Robert,” she said, her eyes getting large as she tilted her head. “Oh come on! He written songs about you!”

“What?”

“ _Song For A_? _Wish I Hadn’t Said_?”  

“They’re not about me.”

“They are. Haven’t you read the interview? I worked it out. You see, because he’s said stuff about you and I hadn’t connected the dots until now. You’re A.”

“He hasn’t done any interviews.” Aaron flushed as soon as he said it, letting slip he’d been searching him. Dawn didn’t seem to notice.

“Get your phone out,” she said. “Do it quick before Ed gets back.”

It was too late, Ed was approaching with drinks, so Aaron made his excuses and slipped off to the toilets, sitting with the lid down and his phone out. Dawn hadn’t told him what to search, but he just looked for recent interviews, filtered by date. The first few were the usual fluff, and he scanned trying to find what Dawn was talking about, the confirmation that the songs were about him.

 **Interviewer: Tell us about Song For A and Wish I Hadn’t Said. They seem to be about the same night, or a continuation of a theme.**  
_Robert: This album wouldn’t have existed without that night, without A. I was at my lowest, out of rehab and no better for it. I was drinking again, miserable, lonely. A real mess of a man. I’d been drinking in an alleyway, just trying to forget myself and the world. If it hadn’t have been for A, I don’t think I’d have sorted myself out._  
**Interviewer: There’s been a lot of speculation about who this A might be. If they are male or female. If they became your lover. There’s certainly a lot of allusions to wanting and desire.**  
_Robert: It’s a night I’ve fixated on. And like I said it was pivotal. I don’t know how A feels and it’s why I don’t want to reveal their identity. I just wanted them to know I haven’t stopped thinking about them._  
**Interviewer: And what about if A got in touch? Will you suddenly have a thousand ‘As’ coming out of the woodwork?**  
_Robert: [laughs] No, I hope not. A knows who they are. There was only one alleyway, one moment, one night._  
**Interviewer: As the song says…**  
_Robert: Exactly._

Aaron rushed out of the cubicle, splashed water on his face and tried to find Dawn. Ed caught him by the elbows and tried to drunkenly pull him to dance, but Aaron could barely make the effort to be amused. He had to almost wait in line to have a word with Dawn. It took a moment for realisation to spring into her face.

“Oh my god,” she said. “You read it.”

Did he look how he felt? Wild? Up-ended?

“Do you have a phone number? For him?”

“Yeah I…” she said. “Oh my god.”

“I need it.”

“Shit. Fuck. My phone’s with one of the bridesmaids. I don’t know which one.”

Before she’d even finished speaking, she grabbed his wrist and pulled him along, over towards the bridesmaids. It felt like hours. They were drunk, their hands clammy, the phone slippery. Aaron could sense this all going wrong.

But finally. Finally. He had his hands on the phone, the number starting straight at him.

“Go,” Dawn said. “Go and find somewhere quiet. I’ll distract Ed.”

He listened to the dial tone. Then hung up after one ring. Tried again. Bottled it. Then the third time it was too late to hang up and there was silence of the phone being answered.

“Hello?”

Aaron was out in the fresh air but could hardly breathe.

“Dawn?”

“It’s not Dawn.”

Silence on the other end. He felt more than thousands of miles away.

“Hi,” Aaron said, almost soundless.

“Did you rea-?”

Aaron didn’t let him get the words out. “The songs are great.”

He laughed. “Is that all you wanted to say?”

“I haven’t stopped thinking about you either.”

Down the other end of the phone was a breath, a sigh or a sharp inhalation.

“Aaron.”

That one word said it all. It breathed life into a song Robert had sung years ago, about a love yet to be found, about voices touching across a distance, about feelings known from the very first moment.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beautiful CD artwork by Anna: https://illgetmerope.tumblr.com/post/187119416776/memorieswarm-is-writing-a-fic-and-i-wanted-to


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